Thank you . I read differently.. I just read that for women, 2.47 was normal. It was a little higher for men. That is why I am concerned. Do you have a good website I can read? I just read the first thing I could find and I know better than that.

I am doing fine from a scleroderma standpoint. The CT scan ph diameter reading changed, as I mentioned before. At my 6 minute walk, I dropped to 85 o2 and my diffusion capacity lowest number was 50 but the highest was 54. We will go with 54 .

Yes, the heart rate has gotten back to normal. It had to have been the Mucinex D. After my first dose of ZPac I am already so much better! Wow that stuff works.

Basically, though, a right heart catheterization is still the gold standard for diagnosing pulmonary hypertension -- as you will see in the article above it, High-Resolution Chest CT Findings Do Not Predict the Presence of Pulmonary Hypertension in Advanced Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which says that "Chest CT-determined fibrosis score, ground-glass opacity score, honeycombing score, total profusion score, diameter of the main pulmonary artery, and the ratio of the pulmonary artery to aorta diameter did not differ between those with and without PH."

Do you like the wonderful weather we arranged especially for your visit??

Sounds like the tests went really well, all in all. When you think how icky you were before the PFTs, I'd say you are Wonder Woman to have done so well. The 85% SpO2 wasn't swell, but don't forget you were at altitude again.

When I had my HRCT, echo, and bubble echo, the results came back "moderate to severe" pulmonary hypertension. Panic? Oh, yes! I immediately rewrote my living will, told my best friend what I wanted for a funeral (a party, OK?), started making lists of things and saying who I wanted them to go to...

Then they sent me for a right heart catheterization (much easier than I expected) and guess what? The degree of PH dropped down to "mild" and even better (huzzah!) is that they put me on ambrisentan and that brought the numbers down into the normal range.